436 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



middle classes were too short-sighted to be influenced by 

 theoretical views which even to this day many of the most 

 liberal thinkers seem unable fully to appreciate. But the 

 chief cause that prevented the development of sound views 

 on the vital problems of the land and of social justice, was, 

 undoubtedly, that men's minds were forcibly directed 

 towards the great struggles for political freedom then in 

 progress. The success of the American revolutionists 

 and the establishment of a republic founded on a 

 Declaration of the Rights of Man, followed by the great 

 French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, entirely 

 obscured all lesser questions, and also led to a temporary 

 and fictitious prosperity, founded on a gigantic debt the 

 burden of which still oppresses us. These great events 

 irresistibly led to the discussion of questions of political 

 and personal freedom rather than to those deeper 

 problems of social justice of which we are now only 

 beginning to perceive the full importance. The rapid 

 growth of the use of steam power, the vast extension of 

 our manufactures, and the rise of our factory system with 

 its attendant horrors of woman and infant labour, crowded 

 populations, spread of disease, and increase of mortality, 

 loudly cried for palliation and restrictive legislation, and 

 thus occupied much of the attention of philanthropists 

 and politicians. 



Character of Nineteenth Century Legislation. 



Owing to this combination of events, the nineteenth 

 century has been almost wholly devoted to two classes of 

 legislation the one directed to reform and popularize the 

 machinery of government itself, the other to neutralize or 



!)alliate the evils arising from the unchecked powers of 

 andlords and capitalists in their continual efforts to in- 

 crease their wealth while almost wholly regardless of the 

 life-shortening labour, the insanitary surroundings, and 

 the hopeless misery of the great body of the workers. 

 To the first class belong the successive Reform Bills, 

 the adoption of the ballot in elections for members 

 of Parliament, household and lodger suffrage, improved 



